Nevada Politician Pitches $25 Passes To Let You Speed

from the budget-crunch dept

Via Slashdot, we find the story of Nevada gubernatorial candidate, Eugene "Gino" DiSimone, who is proposing a somewhat different idea for raising some extra money for the state: offering special "speeding" passes for $25 per day, which would let you drive up to 90 mph on designated highways. He claims it would raise $1 billion per year, which... seems extreme. If my math is correct (and it may not be), that means 40 million uses of this pass, meaning over 100,000 people using it every day. And those would have to be people who not only want to speed, but also figure $25 is worth it balanced against the likelihood of getting pulled over while just traveling 90 on your own. And it will only be allowed for vehicles that pass a special inspection and get a special transponder installed -- further limiting the number of folks who can use it.

Also, nowhere are the "costs" of such a program discussed. Not only will there be these extra inspections, the transponders will cost money, and there's technology infrastructure as well, including the ability to read the transponders, manage the database, set up the call-in system that will let people purchase the day pass, etc. The police are against the idea because they say it'll create more accidents, which some might argue isn't proven fact, but it probably does make their lives more complicated as well. Seems like this is more of an attempt to get some attention (oops, it worked) rather than any sort of serious proposal.

Sheer stupidity

How the hell is that cost effective?

First of all, I've lived in Nevada. Las Vegas to be exact. There's no way this would raise money in Vegas. The simple matter is that there's not enough ROAD to effectively speed through. If you're trying to get from Eastern to Sahara west of the Strip, then it just takes 5-10 minutes. The saying is that it takes about 30 minutes to get everywhere in the city. That's especially true.

Bear in mind, there's also a lot of stop and go traffic which pretty much impedes on this. Quite frankly, the only time this would really be used is with Californicators coming in from LA or a further city.

Politicians are funny. Instead of proposing cutbacks, especially to their own salaries and expenses, they come up with new ways to 'make' money. $25 is way to high. Will there be an annual pass that will be cheaper.

Re: Re: Re: Liability

Extremely bad in two ways:

1) Sets up two tiers, or classes, open plutocracy. The roads belong equally to all.

2) Promotes acceptance of on-vehicle transponders, as adopted by the privileged for a status symbol. That leads to existing plan for transponders on all vehicles, and charges by the mile -- with private corporations owning the roads, end of freedom to travel.

Cool, a license to break the law!

Let's see, $25 to be able to break the traffic laws.
How about $50 to be able to ignore impaired driving laws?
maybe $100 to ignore drug laws. $500 might get you a free pass to ignore break and enter, or theft. $5000 to ignore the murder laws? Whay not, it's all money in the governments coffers.

this idiot should not be allowed to hold any position of responsibility, anywhere.

Yes, we need this.

This is a great idea. I'm not so sure about the cost. It would be better if it was implemented differently, with a tiered license structure. In California we already have carpool lanes. Why not a speeding lane? To use the speeding lane you would have to qualify for a special license through the DMV.

Re: Liability

There would also be a question if there were an accident if the state would share liability. After all, if the cause was excessive speed the state had given permission.

That's actually the bigger issue with this proposal. Why are the police allowed to stop me and give me a ticket if I'm speeding? The justification is that speeding endangers not only myself but other people. So either the state is willing to allow me to recklessly endanger other people in order to raise money, or the state has just destroyed it's rationale for enforcing speeding laws.

Re: Terrible Idea

How many times have you pulled in front of a vehicle, because you know they should be going approximately the speed limit? Two speed limits on the same road is a hazard.

I get what you mean, but on a freeway, there is no pulling out. There are on ramps and off ramps leading onto and off of the far right lane where traffic is usually slowest. I do agree that two speed limits on the same freeway would be chaos. They'd have to do what an earlier commenter suggested and have a designated lane for "speeding."

On a tangent, I've always thought speed limits were ridiculous and arbitrary. Why should a Ferrari being driven by a professional driver be constrained to the same speed as a 60 foot RV driven by a 90 year old geriatric? That's the basis of my argument the next time I get pulled over for speeding. That and appealing to his vanity in that the government puts officers in their positions and gives them the power to determine what's safe and what's not. Hopefully it will come across better in person than it looks in writing. And hopefully I won't need to use it anytime soon.

Re: Re: Liability

Permission or not, driving recklessly is still reckless. A person driving the German Autobahn has permission to drive as fast as they want to, but there is a posted recommended speed. Cause an accident because someone didn't see you coming due to speed and you are liable. Same thing would apply here.

reading this local news report;
[http://www.nevadaappeal.com/article/20100905/NEWS/100909776/1070&ParentProfile=1058], which outlines his other ideas, pretty much paints him (depending on your viewpoint) as the local teabagger candidate. I wouldn't read too much into it.

I'm living in las vegas now.. i drive between vegas and primm several times a week and do 85-90 now and still get passed!!
NHP sets their radar 15mph above posted speed limit. I know this because I asked a NHP patrol officer while at south command HQ during a service call (service tech for Xerox).
this proposal is for areas way outside city limits on some of the most desolate roads in the state.
think Silver State Classic.. a race along at 93 mile stretch of road where depending on class you can go as fast as you want... Yee HaWwwww..
this clown is only proposing something that everyone does now just to generate revenue.. heck going up to the whore houses north west of vegas would take less then the normal 2 hours to get some nookie for all those tourists that want to go get laid and back to the tables faster. and No prostitution is NOT legal in Las Vegas or clark county.
heck little known fact - the "strip" is not actually in las vegas.. that short three odd miles of land going up thru the center of town is actually Clark County, which means metro PD has zero jurisdiction.. thats sheriff territory and they will NOT step one foot on casino property unless called in by hotel security...
/stepping off soap box

Huh?

Re: Re: Liability

The word "excessive" is CLEARLY used to describe speed that is over an allowed average or just logically unnecessary in the first place.

The context of what he said was to indicate that the 'excessive' (unreasonable, unneccessary) speed is STATE-SANCTIONED at that point...

Thus the question is raised on whether or not the State - having authorized and sanctioned these ridiculous speeds - would be liable for any portion of the responsibility, insurance, otherwise...were a horrible accident (caused by unreasonable speeds) to occur.

His question is completely logical and valid. Flawlessly valid.

If you could not see this yourself, you have no business taking part in this discussion.

I can see the writing on the wall. When someone gets killed by someone who was speeding after getting one of these passes, the lawyers will be stacked up through the roof suing these politicians like crazy.

"It was your fault my spouse got killed, you said he could speed for $25. Think of the children, I need to feed them and put them through college"

Remember when Domino's pizza (I think it was) guaranteed that they could get their order to you in like 30 min or less and one of their delivery drivers ended up getting into an accident because of that. That program got shut down in a hurry after the lawyers got through with it.

Re: Dictionary Edit:

Re:

With how hot it is on the Strip, can you blame them? Although, IIRC, they're right there just south of the Luxor. But good lord is the Strip bad to try to walk through! I'll never do that again, I promise!

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Liability

Looking at the report CLEARLY reveals that there is a NIGHT AND DAY difference between speeds where fatalities are concerned.
I'm hoping this is sarcasm because anyone with eyes can see there were more fatalities under 55MPH than those caused at "excessive" speeds.

I am laughing, I actually had the same idea while really drunk one night, and a 1000km trip coming up in a week, the idea of being "allowed" to do upto 110 or 120% of the posted speed limit for a fee seemed reasonable (it'd actually take several hours off a long trip).. when sober it dawned on me that'd never happen then I read this :)

Yeah right

The police are against the idea because they say it'll create more accidents, which some might argue isn't proven fact, but it probably does make their lives more complicated as well.
No the police are against it because a $25 pass is less than the $100+ ticket they would give to speeders. (Or am I just a bit too cynical?)

But I think ultimately I would be against it myself. As others have said the first time someone is injured/killed by a driver that had one of these passes lawyers would descend on that state like a flock of flesh eating crows. I just think that giving these passes is too risky.

The problem with speeding is not only that people are travelling too fast to handle the speeds, there are also problems created by having vehicles on the same road travelling at vastly different speeds.

On most highways, the difference in speed between vehicles is generally +/-5km/h around the specified limit. By allowing some cars to optionally travel up to 25 miles, or 40km/h, faster, you suddenly have a situation where you'll either have cars rapidly and unexpectedly approaching from behind and either slamming on their breaks to avoid hitting you, or whizzing around. That does not create a safe driving environment.

Re: Yes, we need this.

I like it, but the only problem is it could only legitimately apply to a car-driver combination. That is, you prove that you can safely drive a particular car at high speed and you get a pass. That doesn't mean you can safely drive a pickup truck at the same speed, or that anyone else can drive your car as safely. So the problems are 1) how to validate the car + driver combination and 2) how to safely conduct the testing. After all, if someone fails it could go very, very badly.

Re: Re: Terrible Idea

Give it a rest. I would challenge you to reliably tell the difference between 90 mph and 70 mph at half a mile or more from head on. You could argue that if it's close enough that an extra 20 mph makes it unsafe, then you shouldn't be passing anyway, but your arrogance is unwarranted.

Re: Nevada?

That does sound nice, but when Montana removed speed limits from most of their highways they found (surprise!) people started driving really fast. They still pulled people over and gave them tickets for unsafe driving, so it amounted to an unposted speed limit that varied depending on any number of factors such as which trooper saw you, his mood that day, what kind of vehicle you're driving (a camper going 100 probably looks more dangerous than a sedan at the same speed for example - if it's even possible to drive an RV 100 mph), and who knows what else. That was a really long sentence... So in the end they put back the speed limits.

Re: Re: Nevada?

I believe the reason the reinstated the speed limits in Montana was due to them wanting to be eligable for federal funds. Much like Louisiana finally raising their drinking age to 21 so they would be able to qualify for fed money. It's the federal government's way of coercing States into doing what they want.